Chiclet keyboard

[6] Its quality was such that an amazed Tandy executive, whose company had previously released a computer with a similarly unpopular keyboard, asked "How could IBM have made that mistake with the PCjr?

However, when pushed down, conductive material on the underside of the top layer bridges the gap between those traces; the switch is closed, current can flow, and a keypress is registered.

Other versions of the chiclet keyboard omit the upper membrane and hole/spacer layers; instead the underside of the rubber keys themselves have a conductive coating.

When the key is pushed, the conductive underside makes contact with the traces on the bottom layer, and bridges the gap between them, thus completing the circuit.

The term "chiclet" has also been used to describe low-profile, low-travel scissor keyboards with simplified, flat keycaps separated by a bezel.

The first laptop to feature this style of chiclet keyboard was the Mitsubishi Pedion in 1997 (rebranded as the OmniBook Sojourn by Hewlett-Packard).

A white standard wired chiclet keyboard (flat keyboard)
Stylised cross-section of a "rubber" Chiclet keyboard. Under the left key is air space (light grey), just below the upper red conductive layer. The thickness of the bottom three layers is exaggerated for clarity; in real-life they are not much thicker than paper. Note the distortion of the thin rubber where the right-hand key (pressed) joins the sheet. Some designs omit the top membrane (green) and hole (black) layers, instead coating the undersides of the keys themselves with conductive material (red).